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SECRETS: MOTHER KNOWS BEST

“I’m so sorry, Sade.”
Eyes narrowed, she shook her head, confused. “What exactly is going on, Niyi?
Niyi blew out a breath with his mouth, ran his hands over his face and turned
to Kunle, who was staring at Bunmi with a look of shock on his face. “Kunle.”
Slowly, he turned his head to look at Niyi and his eyes narrowed. “Yes, what
exactly is going on, sir?”
“I am your father, Kunle. Your mother and I…”
“You brought your mistress to live in my house?”
He turned back to an open-mouthed Sade and shook his head quickly. “It wasn’t
that way, at all. Agnes has never been my mistress. I had a brief relationship
with her and that ended almost two years before you came into my life.”
Still looking at his wife, he waved a hand in Kunle’s direction. “Kunle was
born, as a result of that relationship.”

Tears fell rapidly from her eyes and wiping them away, she whipped her head
away from him. “How could you keep something like that from me, Adeniyi?” She
turned back to him, tapping her fingers rapidly on the side stool between their
chairs. “When was I supposed to find out?”
Her eyes narrowed. “In another will, maybe?”
He leaned over his chair, to grab her hand and she snatched it away. He sighed
deeply and leaned back on the back of his chair. “I didn’t always know about him,
Sade.”
Shaking his head, he waved his left hand. “That’s not entirely true.”

He leaned forward now and looked at Kunle, who was
listening with rapt attention. “In November 1981, after series of feasibility
studies, a decision was made to expand the family business. So, by late
January, I was asked by my father to go to Ibadan and broker the transaction
that eventually saw us taking over a company that made plastics there. Your
mother was the MD’s secretary then and we often worked together. She was young
and beautiful and one thing led to another between us.”
He sighed deeply and turned, till he was facing his wife again. “That didn’t
last long, because we soon realized that we didn’t have an emotional
connection. We tried to stay friendly, but unknown to either of us, Kunle had
been conceived already. She found out just before I returned to Lagos, in
April.”
He turned again, to look at Kunle. “I asked her to have an abortion.”
Kunle looked away and Bunmi gasped. He turned his head and saw tears streaming
down her face. Shaking his head in regret, he turned back to Kunle, who was
staring at the door. “You have to understand, son. We were no longer together.”
Sade shook her head and said brokenly, “Son?” She had heard her husband call
Kunle that before, but it had never bothered her, till now. She started crying
and Niyi stood to go to her.
“I’m so sorry, dear.”
She shoved his hands away. “Leave me alone, liar! If this hadn’t happened, you
would have taken this secret to your grave. Niyi, you put yams together with
goats and expected them not to be eaten. Now, look what you’ve caused. Bunmi
has children for her brother!”
Niyi closed his eyes and shook his head, then turned. While he slowly walked
back to his chair, she looked at Kunle and looked away immediately, when she
noticed the tears on his face. Shaking her head, her voice became softer, “I
was right in keeping them apart, after all. I was only too late.”

All eyes turned on her. “Keeping us apart?”

“Yes, Bunmi.” Her eyes flashed in defiance, as she
turned to her daughter. “Did you think that I didn’t have eyes?” She clucked
her tongue and waved her hand dismissively. “You didn’t fool me when you
suddenly started coming home later than you usually would, giving all manner of
excuses too.”

She rolled her eyes now. “There was always a friend you had to meet up or
something you had to do after work. Suddenly, you weren’t sure if you wanted to
return to the States, to continue your education. You told me, as often as you
could, that after four years away, you wanted to explore what Nigeria had for
you.”
She rolled her eyes again. “I wasn’t born yesterday, you know. I suspected that
there was a man in the picture and I waited for you to confide in me, like a
good daughter.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Do you remember the day you told me you were going on a
picnic with some of your friends? You left the house very early and were gone
all day.”
She shook her head and clucked her tongue again. “I found out that you had
lied, when I saw Kunle drop you off that night. I had taken a walk and was on
my way home, when I saw his car packed a few houses away from here. It was
dark, but as I walked closer, I saw two people kissing inside the car,
oblivious to the world. I recognized your pink halter dress and quickly walked
past, in shock.”
Bunmi’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her eyes darted to her father, who
was staring at his wife, in surprise. Quickly, she turned her attention back to
Sade.
“You showed no shame, Bunmi! You could have had anyone…” She snapped her finger
once and continued, “…anyone at all, of all the suitors you had. Ambassador
Kolawole’s son, a dashing young man, was ready to marry you immediately. Why
did you have to choose the son of our housekeeper?”
Bunmi started crying. “I loved him mum!” she cried out and Kunle turned his
head quickly to her.
Sade’s eyes narrowed. “Love? A love that was doomed, even from the start? Was
that why you couldn’t look me in the face, when you eventually got home?”
She shook her head sadly and asked, “Could there have been some part of you
that knew how wrong such a love was?”
She turned to her husband and spoke slowly, “Niyi, you have brought an
abomination into our lives and I will never forgive you!”
Standing abruptly, she said, “Where is that snake, who dared to sneak into my
home with her bastard son?”

She marched out of the living room, with Bunmi in hot pursuit, still in tears.
“Mummy!” she pleaded. “Please listen to me. There has to be a better way to
handle this.”
On the corridor, she grabbed her mother’s hand and after Sade tried
unsuccessfully to pull away, she turned to Bunmi, leaned into her, held her
waist and started sobbing.
After a while, she allowed her daughter pull her back to the living room, where
Kunle paced. Niyi was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees and his head in
his hands, but immediately they walked in, he sat erect and looked up, watching
his wife.
After leading her mother to her chair, Bunmi dried her eyes and left the room
again.

“Ma Agnes, where are my children?”
The woman looked up from the cook book she had been poring over and smiled
widely. When she saw the cold look on Bunmi’s face, she slowly shut the book
and spoke slowly, “Oh, you’re back, Bunmi. You must have come home when I went
to my house to…”
“Where are my children?”
Ma Agnes frowned, puzzled at her icy tone. ‘They are outside, playing on the
swings.”
Bunmi’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s watching them?”
“Yetunde.” She was the nanny Sade had hired, just before the burial.
She nodded briskly. “Good. Please, come with me.”
Uneasy, she followed Bunmi into the living room and immediately she saw the
others, her heart rate increased. She had come into the kitchen, through the
back of the house and hadn’t seen Kunle’s car.He must have packed in front of the house.
When he stopped pacing, to stare at her with a mixture of anger and sadness,
she understood the reason for Bunmi’s attitude.

Sade looked up and Agnes saw the tears streaming
down her face. Quickly, she fell to her knees and spoke, “Please, forgive me,
ma.”
“Forgive you for what, exactly?” She shook her head slowly. “You…you scheming
snake!”
Still kneeling, she stretched her hands out, in a pleading gesture. Sade stood
and moved closer, her eyes filled with venom. “I was good to you. I treated you
a lot better than most people treat their helps. For goodness sake, you were
almost like family! Yet, for such a long time, you lied to me.”
Bunmi rushed to her feet and held her mother, stopping her from moving any
closer to Agnes.
“Why?”
When she heard that whisper, she turned to Kunle. “I thought it was the best
thing to do, at the time. I did it all for you, my son.”
He shook his head and turned away from her. As he slowly went back to his
chair, he spoke, “The woman that covered up, so elaborately, couldn’t have been
you. I don’t know her.”
She turned to Sade and sat on her haunches. Closing her eyes, she said softly,
“I’m so sorry. No one was supposed to be hurt. That wasn’t my plan.”
Sade laughed mirthlessly. “How noble of you! You failed to make that plan of
yours foolproof, though. You connived with my husband, to bring into my home,
his…”
She cast her eyes on Kunle and shook her head sadly. Then, she turned her head
to Niyi, who was gripping the arms of his chair tightly and whispered, “You
brought incest into my home.”
He covered his face and moaned, while Bunmi put her head on her laps, as sobs
wracked her body. Looking from father to daughter, Agnes bent her head and
started crying.
When she suddenly wiped her eyes and looked up, a look of determination was on
her face. Looking at Niyi, she spoke softly. “I have wronged you, sir and I
have wronged your family.”
She turned her face to Sade. “There was no baby.”

Sade narrowed her eyes, while Niyi uncovered his
face and stared at her in confusion. When Bunmi slowly looked up, she continued,
“Even though you gave me money to have an abortion, I decide to keep the baby,
but fate had other plans.”
Looking at Niyi, she continued, “Two weeks after you left for Lagos, I had a
miscarriage.”
“What!”
“Kunle is not your son.”
Eyes narrowed, he shook his head slowly. “But…you…said…”
Bunmi and Sade exchanged glances, when Agnes slowly stood and made her way to
Kunle. When she bent and attempted to take his left hand, he pulled it away and
looked away. She straightened and sighed deeply, before going to sit on the
chair beside him.
Turning her attention to Niyi, she continued, “I had been devastated when I
lost the baby and gradually, I started to blame you for that. You knew I was an
orphan and had no one. Yet, you nonchalantly told me to abort our… my child. In
my mind, if you hadn’t been so disinterested, I would have had a living baby.”
“A few months after your company took ours over, some of the administrative
staff were let go.” She rubbed her eyes with her left hand and continued, “It
was a difficult time for me, really. I understood that the new management
wanted to infuse new blood into the company. However, I also knew that if you
had wanted to, you would have helped me keep my job. It became obvious that you
didn’t care about me, at all. The longer I went without a job, I became very
bitter.”
She turned to the side to look at Kunle and smiled, “Then, I met your father.
He made me so happy and he made me forget. He promised to take care of me and
he did.”
Her eyes became sad again. “In June 1982, a few weeks to our wedding, he died
in a car crash. I was devastated, but I tried to be strong, till I had you on
January 17th 1983.”
“1983?”
She turned to Bunmi and nodded. “I had to alter his birth year, to make your
father believe me.” She looked at Niyi, who was leaning forward again, his head
back in his hands. “I got another job after I had him, but the pay was less
than what I earned before. It was tough and very lonely, as a single mother.”
“By 1987, Williams-Akanbi Conglomerate was a high profile company. I didn’t
deal very well with hearing about them in the news and even though I avoided
using any of their numerous products, they were everywhere! Gradually, some of
my earlier bitterness re-surfaced.” She put her left hand over her eyes and bent
her head in shame, before continuing in a low voice, “I felt entitled to some
compensation, really.”
“Compensation?” Kunle spat out.
“I was wrong, Kunle. I know that now,” she muttered.

She raised her head and turned teary eyes on Sade.
“My plan was never to move into your home. It all spiraled out of control when
I came to Lagos to meet your husband.”
She sniffed and shrugged sadly. “I knew, from newspaper reports, that he was
married and had a two-year old daughter, so I thought that he was just going to
send me away with some money. You know…pay me off… or something.”
“How were you able to convince my husband that Kunle was his?”
Niyi raised his head and spoke through clenched teeth, “I don’t know what this
woman is up to, really.”
He turned to his wife and shook his head slowly. “She showed me a birth
certificate that indicated that his birth was registered in June 1982. My name
was on it, as the baby’s father, and according to it, Kunle was born on January
17th 1982.”
He turned to face her and Agnes lowered her head and spoke slowly, “After
parting with a little money, it wasn’t difficult convincing a clerk in a local
government council office in Ibadan to give me that. He gave me a sheet of
paper and I put down exactly what I wanted on the fake document. He didn’t ask
a lot of questions and neither did I, days later, when I got the birth
certificate I gave to you.”
She raised her head and looked at him. “I have the real birth certificate in my
house. I can show you.”
She turned her body, till she was facing Kunle. “David would have wanted you to
have his name, so I made sure that was on your birth certificate. I didn’t just
make up any surname for the sworn declaration of age you used for school and…”
He jumped up from his chair. “This is unbelievable!” Shaking his head, his
voice lowered, as he asked slowly, “Who are you?”
Tears streamed down her face. “I wanted to give you a better life, son.”
“By deceiving my husband?”
She turned quickly to Sade, “I’m so sorry, ma. It all spiraled out of my
control.”

Her mind went back to the conversation she had with
Niyi in his office.
Standing, facing the wide windows in his office and with his back to her, he
said, “I want my son.”
When she gasped, he turned and looked at her. The look on his face made her
heart sink.
“I want my son,” he repeated.
“I’m his mother.”
“And I’m his father!”
She shook her head. “That’s not possible, Niyi. I can’t give up my son.” She
stood to leave. “It was a mistake coming here.”
He shook his head and spoke slowly, “Don’t even think about taking off with
him.” His eyes narrowed. “If you do, I will hunt you… and I will find you.”
Smiling slightly, he added, “Then, I will take him away from you.”
Slowly, she sat and he went behind his desk, sat across her and they talked.
Agnes looked at Niyi, before turning back to Sade. “He wanted Kunle to live
with him, but he didn’t want you to know that he was his son, so he came up
with a plan to employ me as a housekeeper here.”

Sade turned to her husband slowly and remembered how
he had cajoled her into employing a housekeeper.
Lying in bed together, his arms around her, he said gently, “I’ve been
thinking.”
Turning to face him, she smiled. “About?”
“Getting another help for you.”
She raised an eyebrow, “We have a help already. This house isn’t so big, so we
don’t need another person working here.”
“We won’t always live in such a tiny house, you know,” he teased.
“Don’t insult my house, abeg. With
three bedrooms, it’s big enough for a small family.” she laughed.
“I think we should get someone older. Most of these young girls don’t have
their heads in the right place.”
She pushed away from him and sat up, twisting her body so she could look at
him. “Niyi, we don’t need another help. Kemi is a responsible girl and I also
don’t want an older woman, who would most likely give me attitude, in my own
house.”
He reached out and stroked her waist. “If we get someone you’re comfortable
with, she’ll live in the boys’ quarters, just like Kemi. She’ll take the second
room, there. That way, she won’t be in your face so much.”
She turned away from him and folded her arms on her chest. “I don’t know about
that, Niyi.”
He touched her back gently and said, “The doctors said…”
“Niyi, I will never be able to have another child, even if I put my feet up and
did nothing all day. I think it’s time I went back to work, really. I’m fully
recovered now and I miss my job.”
He smiled. “You see? If you have to go back to work, you do need an older woman
in the house to take care of Bunmi, when she comes home from school.”
Smiling gently, she turned to him and bent to touch his face. “I played into
your hands there, right?” Lying down again, she said, “I’ll think about it.”
She shook her head sadly now. “You had an elaborate plan to hoodwink me, didn’t
you?” She stood. “Sort this mess out.”
Turning to Agnes, she said, “I want this…” She closed her eyes for a few
seconds, then took a deep breath. “…this thing out of my house today.”
Head held high, she walked out of the living room. Bunmi stood and stared at
Kunle for a while, before following her mother upstairs.
There was silence for a while, till Niyi spoke, “I want to see the birth
certificate you have.”
Slowly, Agnes got up and left the living room. Niyi picked up his phone and
made a call. “James, if Agnes comes to the gate, do not let her out.”
Kunle sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes with his right hand.

Thirty minutes later, Niyi walked into the master
bedroom. Lying on her belly, his wife refused to look up. Bunmi was sitting
beside her, silently rubbing her back. She looked at him, when he came in.
Never had she seen her father look so unsure of himself. She looked away from
him, when he approached the bed.
“Sade.”
There was no response, so he pleaded, “I’m so sorry, my dear. I didn’t know how
to tell you.”
Her voice was muffled, “Twenty-six years was enough time to mention that your
son was living in my home.”
“He’s not mine, Sade.”
When she said nothing, he added, “Take a look at this.”
Slowly, she rolled over to her back and reached for the short piece of paper
her was extending. She quickly ran her eyes over it.
Date of birth: January 17th 1983
She continued on, till she saw the next detail she was searching for.
Name of father: David Alabi Ifeoluwa
A look at the top of the birth certificate told her that Kunle’s birth had been
registered on February 2nd 1983.
She looked up at Niyi and frowned. “This doesn’t mean anything. This could have
also been forged.” She dropped the paper on the bed and Bunmi picked it up.
“I think she’s telling the truth, this time, but I’m not taking any chances.
We’re going for a paternity test now.”
Walking to the wardrobe to pick out clothes, he tossed over his shoulder,
“We’re all going.”

“Mummy, what did you mean, when you said that you
deliberately kept Kunle and me apart, five years ago?”
That had nagged at her for a while, but she had refrained from asking her
mother, till the hurt from her father’s betrayal receded a bit.
It was almost two weeks since they had found out and, in that time, Sade had
moved into the spare room, opposite the room that was now Bunmi’s.
“I can’t share a bed with a stranger,” she told Bunmi, anytime she pleaded with
her to work things out with her father.
The results of the paternity tests were going to be ready tomorrow, but the
wait had made the entire time pass very slowly. There had not even been work to
distract her; because, she had avoided going to her father’s office, as she
hadn’t want to run into Kunle there.
This morning, it suddenly occurred to her that she was running out of time, in
getting all the answers she needed; because, she had only two days to let the
lawyers know what her decision was.
Sade sighed and looked away. “Do we have to talk about that now? It’s not
important, anyway.”
“I will decide if it’s important or not.”
“Don’t tell me you’re even considering marrying that boy,” she said, peering at
her daughter’s face. When Bunmi stared back at her, without saying a thing, she
exclaimed, “You can’t be serious!”
Leaning over the rocking chair to touch Bunmi lightly, her voice mellowed,
“Sweetie, even if he turns out not to be your brother, you can’t marry him.”
Raising an eyebrow, she asked quietly. “Why?”
“Because, he’s not good enough for you!”
When Bunmi’s eyebrow remained raised, she looked away and spoke, “The night
your father asked you to leave the house, you forgot your phone here,
remember?” Bunmi nodded and she continued, “I didn’t know that, till you called
me from your grandma’s house. I went to your room and retrieved it, then.”
She looked away from her daughter’s steady gaze. “For the first time in my
life, I snooped through your stuff. I noticed that there were lots of calls
between you and I also found text messages that confirmed my suspicions.”
“Why didn’t you tell daddy?”
She shook her head. “It was one thing to know that my daughter preferred
commoners to royalty…” she ignored Bunmi’s narrowed eyes and continued, “… and
another to have it out there in the open. Your father would have had you marry
him.”
She smiled sardonically. “At least, that was what I thought. I didn’t know he
had a secret that would have made him fight that.”
She was quiet for some time, before saying, “He called you.”
Bunmi’s eyes opened wide. “Yes, he kept calling, but I didn’t pick. Soon, I
turned off the sound, so that your father wouldn’t hear the phone ring. He sent
text messages too, full of…” She waved a hand dismisssively. “… romantic
nonsense.”
She rolled her eyes and continued, “What he didn’t know was that, he was
heading to France for the week-long International Trade Convention.”
She smiled. “You see, my dear, I spoke to your father the morning after you
left and convinced him to go with Kunle. My argument was that he needed someone
he trusted with the business, to go with him, since he was too emotionally
drained. Kunle had a valid visa, so your father was only too happy to heed my
advice. By then, his text messages, to you, indicated that he had become
worried. All morning, he called, till your battery became flat, but I was
careful to charge it a bit before I gave it to you.” She smiled again and
shrugged. “They left that night.”

“Was that why you didn’t bring my phone to me
quickly?” When Sade nodded, she slowly got off the rocking chair and paced the
porch. “You only came to see me the day we left for New York almost a week
later. You said daddy had forbidden you to see me.”
She turned to look at her mother now. “Can you imagine how I felt when I saw no
records of any calls or messages from him?”
She shook her head, sadly. “It was such a horrible time, mummy. I left Nigeria,
feeling betrayed and abandoned. I wondered if, somehow, he had known that I was
pregnant. I thought his silence was his way of sending a message to me about
his intentions.” She was silent for a few seconds, then in a voice that was
almost a whisper, said, “How could you, mummy?”
“I had to do all that, Bunmi. I couldn’t watch you make a stupid mistake.” She
frowned and waved her hand impatiently. “It was one thing to give him a great
education and to allow him go on holidays with us, even as a child, and another
to hand my daughter over to him.”
She clucked her tongue. “I was so foolish! There I was, feeling generous, not
knowing that my husband was actually making sure his son had the best of
everything.”
She smiled and nodded briskly. “I convinced your father to spend two more weeks
in France with Kunle. Knowing how things were at home, he was only too glad to.
She rolled her eyes. “I bet, he loved hanging out with his boy, too.” She
shrugged now. “It wasn’t difficult convincing your grandma that you needed some
time away from home. So, by the time they came home, you were already in
America with her. Kunle tried to be as casual as possible, as he asked me about
you. I enjoyed the shock on his face, when he heard that you had gone back to
New York.”
“And you call Ma Agnes a schemer?” Bunmi shook her head. “That must have been
why you encouraged me to stay back and start a Master’s degree.”
“You had an admission already, Bunmi! There was no way I would have folded my
arms and let you miss out on that.”
She smiled gently and continued, “You give me too much credit for all this,
though. You had his number, so you could have called. You could have sent him
an email, too.” She shook her head and added, “I didn’t make all this happen,
you know. You must have known that there was no sense in pursuing a
relationship with him, or you’d have tried harder. You could have even told
your father immediately that he was the man responsible for your pregnancy.”
Folding her arms on her chest, she responded, “There had not been any
opportunity to tell Kunle that he was going to be a father, so how could I have
told daddy?” She closed her eyes, as she remembered. “Grandma hovered over me a
lot, when I was at hers and I didn’t want to make any calls that could be
traced to Kunle, so using her phone was out of the question. When we got to New
York, I called him, but his number wasn’t going through, so I called the house,
hoping to catch Ma Agnes. I asked after him and she told me that he had gone to
France.”
She opened her eyes and shook her head. “I was surprised to hear that, but I
thought there must have been a rational explanation for the silence. So, I left
numbers, still.”
She cocked her head to the side and raised an eyebrow, silently asking her
mother about that.
“Oh, that.” Sade’s eyes turned defiant. “That afternoon, I was using the
bathroom when I thought I heard the phone ring. As soon as I came out, I picked
up the extension in the master bedroom and overheard the last part of your
conversation, but before I could speak, you hung up.”
She shrugged and looked away. “I made Agnes give me the paper and instructed
her not to breathe a word of your call to Kunle. I told her I didn’t want any
murky waters.”
She turned back to Bunmi, threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, I was such a
fool. I didn’t know that she had her own reasons for not wanting both of you
involved.”
“I was the fool, mummy.” Bunmi shook her head ruefully. “All these years, I was
angry with daddy for the way things turned out. A lot of that blame should have
gone to you, yet you were the one I held dear.”
She shook her head again. “Six months ago, when you visited me, you bemoaned
the fact that I refused to come back home, forgetting that you were the one
that sent me away.”
Sadly, she turned and walked away, but after taking a few steps, she turned
back to Sade. “Daddy is no stranger to you. You’re cut from the same cloth.”
She continued walking.No wonder he never called me.
She frowned. Still, I called him a few weeks later and he had already
moved on.

They were all in the study with the lawyers, all
eyes turned to Bunmi, to hear her answer.
When she turned to the side and met her mother’s eyes, Sade’s head went up a
notch and she gave it an imperceptible shake.
Niyi sat behind the desk, his eyes giving away nothing, but his fingers beat a
tattoo on his desk, betraying his agitation.
Kunle leaned forward on his chair, resting his elbows on his knees. His legs
were spread wide and both feet tapped the floor. When she smiled at him, he
blew out a breath with his mouth.
She turned to Gregory Olabode and smiled. “We have a wedding to plan.”

OJK again,awesome story line,let's hope even Kunle doesn't have his own secret to unravel,seeing that Sade,Niyi and Ma Agnes are all cut from the same piece of cloth LOL.Can't wait for the continuation and where u get the time to join writing to your already busy schedule is beyond me,keep it up Dear!